You may want to borrow a pressure tester from Autozone and pressure test your system. Head gaskets are very common on these cars with high miles and a common symtom is pushing coolant out the overflow. 5 miles should not be enough to overheat your motor even with air in it. Blown head gaskets can start building pressure in the cooland system very quickly.

When you do the pressure test make sure you check the cap also.

 

i went to work today (65 mile round trip) with no over heating at all. the temp stayed in the same place the whole time with highway and in town driving so i dont think its a head problem i will however still rent the pressure tester and check just to make sure.
Im going to bleed it flush it and fill it tomorrow. I have read a lot about using green or orange antifreeze and what i got out of all my reading is that it dont really matter what i put in as long as i check and change regularly is this correct?
Well thanks again everyone i appreceiate all that fast responses
Trevor

 

u want to use half antifreeze half water mix and use the same kind of antifreeze. dont mix types. there are a couple that jell if mixed. makes a big mess of the cooling system clogging up the radiator and heater core.

 

when i got it the antfreeze was green so im flushing it and filling it with green but i was kinda wondering if it had orange before and that is maybe why i have no heat now because the lines are clogging either way im going to put green back in after a good flush toorrow thanks
Trevor

 

take the heater hoses off at the water pump and flush it that way. it works better.

 

yea you wanna go 50/50 on your antirfrezze and half water.Should be a plug on the bottom of the raddiator for flushing it but what craby said works just as good if not better!

 

Backflush the heater core. To do this, drain the fluid from the radiator drain plug, then disconnect the two heater hoses at the water pump. Turn on a garden hose, and plug it in to one of thoe hoses. Run that until the water runs clean out of the other hose. Then, swap and do the same thing to the other hose.

After you've flushed the heater core, remove your overflow tank (under the battery), and dump everything that's in it. Rinse that out really well, and make sure to flush the little rubber hose coming out of it as well.

Now, reconnect all the hoses and the overflow tank. Flush the whole system with your standard over-the-counter flush mix. Since you aren't sure what kind of coolant was in there before, you want to get every trace of the old stuff out.

Fill it up with a 50/50 mix of your preferred coolant. To do this, take off the rad cap and pour directly into the radiator. Make sure you also fill up the overflow tank to the "full cold" line on the dipstick. Unscrew the bleed screw enough to let air out, and wait a few minutes while the coolant that you put in the radiator seeps into the rest of the engine (it helps to be pointed uphill as mentioned before). Keep filling at the radiator until the level doesn't drop.

Close the bleed screw, put on the cap, and run the car until it gets to normal operating temp. Once it's there, leave the engine running and open the bleed screw. At first, it will bubble and spit air. Let all the air out until it's a solid stream of coolant. Tighten the screw, and check the level in the overflow tank. Make sure that it's up to the "full hot" line. If not, fill it up until it is. You may need to do this bleed process several times to get all the air out. I find it helpful (and just plain fun) to take the car out for a quick test drive after bleeding, then come back and bleed again just to make sure all the air's out.

It really doesn't matter what kind of coolant you use, as long as you don't mix different types together. The cheapest way to get a 50/50 mix is to buy a jug of full concentrate, pour half of it into an empty milk jug, and then top both up with water. If you do that, make sure that you clearly mark both jugs as 50/50 so that you don't treat any leftovers like full concentrate in the future.

 

i dont know what the f to do now other than replace the heater core i flushed it and filled/blead it and i still dont have heat. I just let it get warmed up and it sorta felt like the air was working a little but i cant say for sure because my hands were freezing. I think all the air is outta the lines also its cold here in illinois and when it overheated the other day i dont think the fan came on at all but i cant say for sure, Could it be a simple relay or something else
Thanks
Trevor

 

yah what ^^^he said. lol nnew u sound like uv done the flush thing at least once. lol well said.

 

so its not overheating?